The Wall Street Journal reports, BlackRock is planning to launch a trading platform this year that would let the world’s largest money manager and its peers bypass Wall Street and trade bonds directly with one another. Under the plan, the platform would seek to match buyers and sellers of the same securities, in a process known as “crossing trades.” BlackRock Solutions would charge a small fee for the service that would be much lower than Wall Street’s trading commissions. Some of the transactions would effectively cut out the Wall Street dealers that have long acted as middlemen in the credit markets. BlackRock’s asset business, which oversees $3.5 trillion, would also use the platform.
The Wall Street Journal also reports, The U.S. accused Apple and five of the nation’s largest publishers Wednesday of conspiring to raise e-book prices, in a case that could radically reorder the fast-growing business. In a civil antitrust lawsuit, the Justice Department alleged that CEOs of the publishing companies met regularly in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants to discuss how to respond to steep discounting of their e-books by Amazon.com. According to Attorney General Eric Holder: “As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles.”
Reuters reports, Emboldened energy market regulators are mounting an aggressive new campaign to stamp out a once-common trading practice that crosses physical and paper markets, unnerving traders who fear a backlash over years-old deals. Away from the contentious debate over Dodd-Frank derivative market reforms that followed the 2008 financial crisis, this new battle takes place in the gray area separating cash markets for commodities like crude oil and power from the swaps or futures contracts that are tied to those prices. While many companies legitimately trade in both markets, often to hedge their positions, regulators say others are manipulating one market in order to profit in the other.
The Wall Street Journal reports, BlackRock is planning to launch a trading platform this year that would let the world’s largest money manager and its peers bypass Wall Street and trade bonds directly with one another. Under the plan, the platform would seek to match buyers and sellers of the same securities, in a process known as “crossing trades.” BlackRock Solutions would charge a small fee for the service that would be much lower than Wall Street’s trading commissions. Some of the transactions would effectively cut out the Wall Street dealers that have long acted as middlemen in the credit markets. BlackRock’s asset business, which oversees $3.5 trillion, would also use the platform.
The Wall Street Journal also reports, The U.S. accused Apple and five of the nation’s largest publishers Wednesday of conspiring to raise e-book prices, in a case that could radically reorder the fast-growing business. In a civil antitrust lawsuit, the Justice Department alleged that CEOs of the publishing companies met regularly in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants to discuss how to respond to steep discounting of their e-books by Amazon.com. According to Attorney General Eric Holder: “As a result of this alleged conspiracy, we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles.”
Reuters reports, Emboldened energy market regulators are mounting an aggressive new campaign to stamp out a once-common trading practice that crosses physical and paper markets, unnerving traders who fear a backlash over years-old deals. Away from the contentious debate over Dodd-Frank derivative market reforms that followed the 2008 financial crisis, this new battle takes place in the gray area separating cash markets for commodities like crude oil and power from the swaps or futures contracts that are tied to those prices. While many companies legitimately trade in both markets, often to hedge their positions, regulators say others are manipulating one market in order to profit in the other.